Between Us, page 23
‘Calm down! You know Ryan – he’s a long way away, and he’s being overcautious.’
‘He’s a selfish shit, worrying about his inheritance and wrapping it up in concern for you, more like.’
‘You always leap to the worst possible conclusion.’
‘Sorry, what is the good conclusion in, “Perhaps Roisin’s friend is conniving to defraud you”?’
‘He was merely asking whether Matt had longer-term intentions regarding The Mall!’
‘Why on earth would anyone see this bang average place and think “hoh, a goldmine”? It’s been a millstone round your neck for years.’ Roisin was being insulting and didn’t care.
‘Yes, but Ryan doesn’t know Matt and doesn’t know how nice he is. He heard a man was sorting everything out and he wanted to be sure I kept control of the pub. He was protecting my interests. That was all.’
‘You always do this. Whatever Ryan does, you turn it into virtue. If Ryan had genuine concerns about Matt, why not bring them to me? You know, the person who knows Matt and vouched for him?’
‘I’m sure he would if you ever called him, Roisin! You don’t exactly make yourself available to your family.’
‘IS THIS NOT AVAILABLE?!’ Roisin bellowed, flailing her arms to indicate her presence in front of her mother.
‘Honestly, if I’d known you’d fly off the handle, I’d not have said anything …’
‘No good turn goes unpunished, eh? Slagging my friends off as potential thieves is next level. As if I’d put you at risk! Did he even address that part?’
Lorraine didn’t answer, and was making an I will have to suffer my daughter’s terrible temper as best I can long-suffering face, arms crossed and eyes to ceiling.
‘Also, Matt’s been given his job back. He’s employed. He could simply enjoy his break before he starts again; instead, he’s putting in hours here.’
‘Knock knock! Bit of pre-match nerves, is it? Haha!’
Terence let himself in, arms full of cellophane packets of catering pack floured baps.
Roisin was too annoyed to feel embarrassed and said, ‘Something like that. I’ll leave you to talk through the plans with Terry. Give me a shout when McKenzie, aka The Talented Mr Ripley, wants to start decorating the garden and stealing fivers from the till.’
‘What’s up with her?’ she heard Terry say, and her mother replied in a stage-whisper, ‘It’s Ladies Day At Ascot on the calendar today, if you know what I mean. Pay it no heed.’
Roisin stomped upstairs, lay on her bed – unseeing eyes boring into the drum-shaped lampshade – and boiled on what had been said. She considered firing off a what did you say that for, please? at Ryan, yet dismissed it within seconds. She knew exactly what she’d get back: a bloodless, curt dismissal. I simply wasn’t clear what his interest in The Mallory might be followed by a how are you? which wasn’t a how are you as much as it was a that’s as much time as I’m giving your tantrum.
Fallings-out weren’t best conducted on encrypted messaging platforms, across oceans, anyway.
Thing was, it wasn’t Ryan she was angry with, not really. Yes, he could be an arsehole, but she knew that. A 3,500-miles-away arsehole.
It was her mother she was mad at. Matt’s natural brightness and Lorraine’s current reliance on their help had made her forget what she was really like, why she gave her mum a wide berth most of the time.
Lorraine took what she needed, then took some more, yet when Roisin needed some giving back – like, say, her mother putting Ryan politely in his place when he was undermining his sister – Lorraine went AWOL, playacted dumb. Support was something she sought but never bestowed.
Why even tell Roisin that Matt had been misspoken? Because Ryan was always higher in the pecking order. Even as Matt and her daughter saved her fête and saved her face, Lorraine couldn’t resist subtly reasserting that her son was CEO of the company. That his was the five-star standard of care. She rewarded words and took actions for granted.
Four years after her dad died, her mother was seeing a man with terrible moccasin shoes called Gary, who drove an uninsured car and flirted with Roisin. Roisin knew Gary had very bad word of mouth among the womenfolk of Webberley, and that sort of grapevine was rarely wrong.
She tried to get her mother to see sense. Ryan told Lorraine she should do whatever made her happy. He resisted Roisin’s entreaties to raise doubts, though she knew he had them. Ryan never made an intervention that could cost him popularity or even minor difficulty. Lorraine became engaged to Gary. She then discovered he was already married and had a petty criminal record.
Both of her offspring were at university, yet Roisin was required – with the emotional equivalent of a gun at her temple – to miss nearly two months of her course to come home and nurse her mother through a mini-breakdown and keep the pub running.
Her mother’s legend recorded that her recovery was magicked into being the day that Ryan had scraped enough from his student budget to send her an incredible bouquet. She still repeated the emetic message on the card about how his mother was a queen who deserved nothing less than a king.
Moccasins Gary had been expunged from the record, and Lorraine instead recalled only that Roisin was so much of a daddy’s girl, she’d scared Lorraine’s suitors away.
55
Roisin marched into Lorraine’s bedroom and threw open the wardrobe doors as if it was a rifle cabinet. The dazzling rainbow of silky fabrics demonstrated where The Mallory’s refurb budget was going. Quite a few things still had their cardboard tags dangling.
She selected a black metallic evening dress that looked like it was made of strips of precious bin liners. It was maxi-length and would encircle her legs in a way that made it not the most practical for mobility, but what the hell.
Back in her room, Roisin had to pull and tug at the zip somewhat, having a similar genetic blueprint to her mother but with a more generous chest and hips. When it finally fastened, it gave her a pleasing hourglass shape: a beguiling mixture of everything covered and provocative slink.
Roisin tied a striped butcher’s apron over the top and laced her boots back on. She was delighted with herself and felt a pubescent-level roar of rebellion. She looked like an It Girl heiress at Glastonbury.
The sensation was only improved minutes later by sashaying her sparkled-black shiny bottom past her mother on the front bar.
She garnered a shout of ‘Ooh la la!’ and a full set of turned heads from the grotty men cabal. And a, ‘WHAT THE! That’s Hervé Léger and it’s NEW!’ from Lorraine.
‘Harvey Leg said it was fine,’ Roisin said, blowing her a kiss.
Outside, taking up her stand, Roisin had completely the opposite problem to the one she feared. She wasn’t standing like a nelly, clacking her BBQ tongs like castanets: she was overrun.
Within an hour of opening, customers poured into The Mallory’s garden, now canopied with vintage bulb fairy lights and ringed with wooden planters full of flowers, thanks to Matt’s efforts. The throng were definitely not The Mall’s usual crowd: shoals of girls with peach-coloured and peroxide hair, fairy wings and heart-shaped deely boppers.
Roisin guessed Matt’s smooth talking on the high street had decontaminated the pub’s rep as one only for the stolid old guard.
Roisin’s meat-free offer proved extremely popular with a village that now contained many more vegans, flexitarians and clean eaters than it used to. Although clean eating didn’t seem to preclude ingesting a river of white rum.
She and Terence were out of produce within two hours.
‘Locusts!’ Terence said. ‘Scenes of unbridled gannetry.’
He had Lorraine’s attitude to people of the world either accepting or declining to spend their money at The Mallory: either way, it was an impertinence.
Matt was busiest of all, with his ‘Five Classic Cocktails, Each A Fiver’ stand, hurriedly hacking limes to pieces and chopping mint whenever he got a spare moment.
‘Want a hand?’ Roisin said, and Matt handed her his ice bucket. ‘Refill that if you would, ta.’
Roisin made a salute.
Terence went inside to help her mother, so Roisin stayed garden side, to roam for empties and play supporting act to Matt. As his platonic friend, she was careful not to reflect or swoon in any way at how he looked with shirt sleeves rolled up, concentrating, a light sweat on his brow.
‘Hiiiiiiiiii, Roisin!’ Grace and Imogen chimed in unison as they lighted upon her.
‘Hello! Very nice of you to come.’
‘Oh we’d not have missed it,’ Grace said, swooping in for a double kiss, Imogen following suit. ‘Not seen you in an age, Roisin.’
Grace and Imogen were always easy and pleasant company, contrary to her mother’s dark mutterings. Roisin supposed Lorraine had long felt banished from genteel society and had made Grace and Imogen erroneously representative of that rejection, as they were also a solo mother and daughter of the same ages. It was as if Lorraine and Roisin were the Slutty Halloween Costume versions of them.
‘This place is heaving. Never seen The Mallory so busy. Love the little spruce you’ve given it. Top sprucing,’ Imogen said, precisely the kind of remark Roisin was glad her mother wasn’t here to bristle at.
Everything was a slight if you were determined to find one.
Despite being only Roisin’s age, Imogen was in a padded headband, blazer and loafers. She was rather gorgeous in a Ralph Lauren Polo sort of way. Everything about her was either the colour of caramel or the minky-pink of a worn ballet dancer’s shoe. Her mother had the highlighted, layered hair of someone who made weekly salon trips, and a navy dress with a corsage at the waist and a knife-pleat skirt. She twitched at Roisin’s apron and said, ‘Is there some sort of marvellous gown under that? Take it off, let us see!’
‘Oh … I was protecting it from corn cob splatter …’
Roisin unlaced her apron, pulled it away and made a little ‘gameshow hostess girl’ curtsy.
‘Oh my goodness! We don’t often get to see you dolled-up – you look like a real vamp!’ Grace said, approvingly, as Roisin stood slightly sheepishly in her robbed finery.
‘Love those body-con bandage dresses,’ Imogen agreed. ‘People said they were of their time, but they’re a classic now. You’ve absolutely got the curves for it. I’d look like a plastic safety-wrapped suitcase.’
Roisin laughed and felt relieved that Lorraine wasn’t here to fume at any of that.
‘That guy over there. He works here?’ Imogen said, looking over at Matt.
‘Oh, Matt’s my friend,’ Roisin said. ‘Helping out.’
Despite Lorraine’s terrors of their predatory nature around the menfolk, she’d not actually expected this to come to pass.
‘He’s frightfully good-looking, isn’t he?’ Imogen said.
‘Oh, if I was twenty years younger!’ Grace said. ‘I do my Kegels. Immo got a Gwyneth Jade Egg!’
‘Mum!’ Imogen barked. ‘How’s Joe?’
She was still looking at Matt, and Roisin caught the implication easy enough.
‘Fine!’ she said brightly.
‘We loooooooved SEEN,’ Grace said. ‘Immo and I were glued to it, weren’t we? We never guessed the courier had cosmetic surgery! Very clever chap, your man. Any chance of making your mother the happiest woman in Cheshire and doing a bit of DUM DUM DE DUM, DUM DUM DE DUM …’ Grace glanced around – ‘Look at the space here!’ – and winked.
‘I’m not ready to get married yet, Grace. I’ve not sown enough wild oats,’ Roisin said, as she knew Grace did ‘bawdy’.
‘Oh! Heavens above!’ she shrieked.
‘She thinks I’m joking,’ Roisin said to Imogen, who also screeched.
‘You are the funniest, Sheena,’ Imogen said. ‘I always say that to Mum.’
Grace and Imogen were exactly the kind of people to produce a nickname for you out of nowhere and apply it liberally.
They moved on to circulate, and half an hour later, Roisin glanced over and saw Imogen almost bent double with laughter at something Matt had said. She straightened up, put the back of her hand to her mouth and the other on the small of his back, and Roisin felt a sharp stab of an unexpected, unnamed emotion.
She looked at Matt, and he saw her. His eyes travelled down to her dress, and suddenly it felt two sizes tighter and considerably more revealing than it had done before.
Terence tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Have you seen that fat cat? I’m due to clock off but some American tourists want a photo with it. They seem to think it’s a celebrity, God help us. Has Elvis left the building? He’s a candidate for dying in the same way, that’s for sure.’
‘Meatball was under that picnic table last I saw,’ Roisin said, pointing. ‘Want me to retrieve him?’
‘Much obliged.’
Terence liked cats even less than her mum.
Imogen grabbed Roisin as she passed her on the way into the pub, halfway through her mission.
‘Heading off now – wonderful day, thank you! We MUST go for some bubbles back in Manchester soon, give me some dates.’ Then, leaning in, she said, ‘Can you do me a favour and forward your pal Matt’s number? He’s cute as hell, isn’t he?’
‘Hah, sure,’ Roisin smiled, over Meatball’s bulk, knowing full well that Imogen only spontaneously craved Proseccos with raspberries in order to pump her for information about McKenzie.
‘Thank you!’ Imogen said, making a heart shape with her hands, fingertips pressed together, which almost made Roisin change her mind.
56
As darkness fell, she went to find Matt.
‘OK, wasn’t it?’ he said to her, arms folded, surveying the thinning hordes with satisfaction. ‘We made a metric ton for the charity, way beyond the target, and your mum is calling her takings a ‘gold rush’. That’s good fêteing.’
Roisin slung her arm around his waist. ‘OK? Utterly amazing. Look what you did. You are a prince among men. You have shifted the paradigm.’
Whether Lorraine maintained the momentum Matt had found was yet to be seen, but he’d forever proven it could be done. He’d lifted a sixteen-year-old curse.
‘Glad to have helped,’ Matt said. ‘It’s given me an inner glow.’
‘Hope that’s not Terry’s burger relish. I saw Del Monte fruit cocktail going into it.’
She and Matt laughed like Beavis and Butthead. Roisin saw a sixty-something woman seated at a picnic table shoot them both an adoring look, obviously taking them for a couple.
Roisin beamed back. Matt saw the woman too, and glanced appraisingly at Roisin.
In a split second, she became acutely self-conscious. Her arm, chucked around Matt’s middle, demonstrating how easy she was with him, was suddenly heavy as lead. She could sense every inch of her limb making contact with his midriff, feel the heat of his skin through his shirt. What had been so thoughtlessly done was charged with electricity.
Was her arm even positioned normally? Roisin couldn’t tell. She was as stiff-jointed as a shop mannequin. Someone else had cranked her elbow hinge, curled her fingers, and she could only maintain the pose.
Matt put his hand over hers and moved her arm down to her side, and her breathing stopped. A clear indication that Roisin had overstepped, and that he felt awkward too. But … he didn’t let go of her hand? They stood looking out over the garden, their palms clasped together.
In a little invisible game of raising the stakes, Roisin adjusted her hand inside his grip, interlocking their fingers. Matt responded by squeezing her hand. She squeezed back. What was going on? She felt incredible tension in parts of her body that were not her hand.
Lorraine burst into the garden, ringing the bell for last orders like a town crier, and she and Matt sprang apart like foxes who’d had water thrown over them.
Roisin obsessed about the surreptitious handholding, and what it meant, for the rest of the shift. Probably nothing; she was out of practice at courting rituals.
In this burgeoning attraction to Matthew McKenzie, was she the world’s biggest hypocrite? She’d tried in vain to get a charge to stick with Joe, and yet, ‘heavy flirting with one of our best mates, a New York minute after we split up’, was hardly acceptable.
Joe didn’t need to know. He’d never know. Nor did Matt, for that matter. Or not explicitly.
‘Kids, I’m going to turn in, I’m beat,’ Lorraine said, once all chores were finished, towels thrown over beer taps, drip trays up-ended.
‘You do look tired,’ Roisin said, then, in case it sounded like a dig, added, ‘Very well-earned exhaustion, too. What a fête! Meatball was a star turn!’
‘Don’t pander to that grotesque beast. You’re like Neville Chamberlain with Hitler. Thank you, both of you. I’ve had compliments about how our efforts were the best of the village all day.’
‘Pleasure,’ Matt said kindly as she left them.
Roisin sensed her mother might’ve been chastened by Roisin’s outburst over Ryan, and that was no bad thing.
‘Right then, Roisin Walters,’ Matt said, picking up two glasses upside down by their stems and setting them down on the bar top. ‘Manhattan?’
‘Hell, yeah,’ she said, getting a shiver at the prospect of their being alone together.
57
Roisin was experiencing a surge of pleasure such as she’d not known in a long while. She’d warmed to The Mallory: no longer was it a prison with frilly pelmets. She saw it as Matt did; it enveloped her instead of oppressing her. The glow of sconce lights on the red walls, the dark wood, the leather stud-back booths and tartan stools, the rumble of the dishwashers: soothing. As was the velvet quiet of the countryside beyond the windows.
She’d always found the noise of the city relatively comforting and the silence of the countryside spooky. Times were changing.
The Manhattan was helping.
‘I believe I have to pass your phone number on to Imogen,’ Roisin said. ‘Tireless work.’
